Gráficos en pantallas de descripción general

I can only teach what I know and so I’m a second language learner so everything I’ve learnt is you know from out of the books or from my lecturers or from my teachers and stuff. So you know I’m really just a copy of what they’ve been giving me. So you know like um whatever I’m deficient at that’s getting handed onto the kids as well so I’m always conscious of that. . . . So, yeah it’s definitely different, definitely different. So there’s definitely that formal language but I guess it’s the learners realising its formal language. It’s not the language they use in the wharekai [dining room] or in the kīhini [kitchen] or the kautā [kitchen] you know it’s a different language so I suppose it’s about using that language in the right

context and teaching our students in class. You know that there’s this reo and that reo and your grandparents aren’t wrong. If they’re speaking that way, you should be following that example too. It’s just teaching them these different ways of using the language I suppose.

Both of the interviewees expressed concern about the nature of the language being transmitted to their students. Effectively, although neither used the term, they were arguing in favour of more communicatively-oriented programmes (as actually recommended in the new curriculum document). However, both highlighted the many types of barrier there are to moving in this direction within an English-medium schooling context.

3.6.3.5 Concept introduction and concept checking

So far as concept introduction and concept checking is concerned, while both interviewees appear to have developed strategies to cope, Teacher 2, who attended a six month training course specific to the teaching of te reo Māori, appears to have had an opportunity of giving more careful consideration to specific techniques relating to both.

Teacher 1:

So I teach the construction. . . . I teach under the context that they are familiar with. . . A lot of it, in terms of teaching the constructions, a lot of it is repetition. . . . It’s usually oral in the first instance, visuals and orals. And everyone has a turn at constructing a sentence using it and then after that we play a few games. A lot of my resources or consolidation things are online activities: jigsaws, fill in the missing words, reconstruct the sentences. I don’t do a lot of whakapākehā (translations into English). I ensure that they know the guts of the constructions and how they can manipulate it to say other things.

Teacher 2:

Yeah, well, before I went to that Whakapiki course it was just, you know, you put the structure up and this is the structure, you know. I had no idea. That's how powerful having a context is, you know, putting those new vocabulary and those new structures into actual context. . . So you know . . . if you’re doing conversational stuff you’ve gotta put it in a way that they would actually use it. . . . [So] it’s definitely about contextualising your teaching and it definitely makes it easier for the kids they pick it up a lot faster. Using pictures and stuff like that, you know, the visual learning is really big. . . . So just little things like that, but it is really important that when you’re starting a new topic that um that they do definitely get that understanding . . . So a lot of brainstorming at the start, you know, just of the topic in general.

Yep, well . . . sometimes you . . . you get the time to do it and other times you don’t, and that’s just being honest but you know when you get the time to do it then what you like to see is a practical situation of the kids actually using it. . . [At] the end you provide them with a bit of creative license where they produce those structures in their own way creatively and then you’ll get a better idea if whether or not a kid actually understands what they’ve used or whether they’re right off track. . . . I think probably another important thing too is . . . actually leaving it for a couple of days and then coming back to it rather than just leaving it.

Although both of the interviewees appear to have developed concept introduction and concept checking strategies, Teacher 2, who attended a six month training course specific to the teaching of te reo Māori, appears to have had more opportunity to reflect on these strategies, particularly in the case of concept introduction.

3.7 A final comment

The overall impression gained from a review of the questionnaire responses and the interviews is of a group of dedicated teachers who are doing their best to provide a high quality educational experience for their students in spite of the fact

that they are expected to perform a wide range of duties in addition to teaching and have, in general, had little formal training in the teaching of second/ additional languages. While, in general, they appreciate finally having a curriculum document that relates specifically to the teaching and learning of te reo Māori, they would prefer that it provided much more support, particularly in terms of language specifics. Overall, they appear to be less than wholly satisfied with the resources available to support their teaching and have serious concerns about the nature of national assessment and its impact on teaching and learning.